Date of Observation: 02/27/2022

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Red lady skinner, observed from the top

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Widely propagating and long running slide in Redwell looks very recent. Pic from 1:23 pm

Date of Observation: 02/26/2022
Name: jeff banks

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Skied SW-W
BTL to NTL 10,000-12,000

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: too many to count in the distance
Weather: cold, clear, light to moderate W wind
Snowpack: ~30 collapses
Some dropped the slope a 1-2 inches under foot.

Medium to Large collapses that in some cases shook snow off of small trees 10m away.

Slab is gaining strength & ski pen is getting shallower ~25cm deep.

Date of Observation: 02/26/2022
Name: Frank Stern

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Town Ranch to CBMR — GMT course

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Frequent settling, shooting cracks. Several small slides, W, E
Weather: Partly cloudy

Date of Observation: 02/24/2022
Name: Mary Nolan

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Coney’s

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: A couple of fresh slab avalanches that ran today on the northwest side of Snodgrass, BTL
Weather:
Snowpack: Collapse and shooting cracks on a 30 degree slope, NE aspect.

Date of Observation: 02/24/2022
Name: Zach Kinler Eric Murrow

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Short tour up Elk Creek via ridge, then up to the Anthracites, standard skin track to ridge.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Phew…Most avalanches paths facing northeast and east in Elk Creek avalanched.  Some ran during the middle of the storm and others very recently with just an inch or two on the bed surface, mostly D1.5 with several D2s.  East-facing natural in the 7 sisters area above Kebler Pass road, D1.5.  We also remotely triggered a few small pockets that mother nature left hanging for us, D1s.  At the Anthracites there was a D2 midslope in East Bowl (failed mid storm), a natural D1.5 on a southeast slope that ran Thursday morning (no snow on bed surface, and failed above the crust), and we remotely triggered a D2 at the very top of East Bowl with a little bit of hunting for the trigger point at ridgetop.  Many other slopes near the Anthracite skin track appeared to have avalanched early in the storm and refilled, hard to say for certain but there was slight texture below many steep slopes.
Weather: Blustery, temps in the teens, WNW winds were light with moderate gusting near tree line and on exposed ridges. Peeks of sun here and there but low clouds shrouded alpine areas.
Snowpack:  On shady slopes, in Elk Creek, the storm snow was around 18 inches deep and produced numerous collapses.  Signs of instability were obvious, but most of the steep terrain already avalanched.  At the Anthracites storm snow was 24 to 30 inches deep with the bottom portion of the slab at 4 finger hardness.  Signs of instability were harder to come by here as the slab was thicker, but I would NOT call it stubborn to human triggers…more like the sirens calling you into the rocks on the Aegean Sea.  We poked around on south and southeast features in the area and did not find signs of instability with hasty hand pits that seemed to point at reasonable bonding between crust and storm snow.  Crusts were 4 to 5 inches thick below 2 feet of storm snow.  We did not inspect any drifted sunny features.

Date of Observation: 02/24/2022
Name: Drew Holbrook

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Double Top

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: See photo. Don’t recall seeing this before.
Weather:
Snowpack:

Date of Observation: 02/24/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: From CBMR, I had brief visibility this afternoon of some alpine terrain around Copper Creek, Deer Creek, and Gothic Peak. Most of the peaks remained socked in. Could also see some terrain around Peanut Lake Road, Washington Gulch, etc.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Widespread D1 to D2 cycle BTL on NE to E aspects. Every bowl on the east side of Gothic Peak ran (SE and E aspects). I could see a handful of slides on west aspects BTL out by Brush Creek. Good views of south and southwest facing terrain above Copper and Deer Creek and that terrain didn’t produce naturals (combination of thicker crusts and windward aspects).
Weather: Periods of steady transport at the summit of Mt. CB. Clouds started clearing in the donut hole.

Date of Observation: 02/24/2022
Name: Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: CB Nordic Hill. NE aspect

Observed avalanche activity: No
Snowpack: The “2022 total BS drought sandbox layer” continues to show unusual behavior. On the Nordic Hill, we systematically trafficked and sluffed that layer before the storm, and got numerous shooting cracks, collapses, and mini slabs when we worked it Tuesday afternoon halfway through the storm. This morning, we got repeat collapses in some areas that had already been worked. Cracks were shooting along old ski tracks and doing some wild things I haven’t seen on that slope before. This is the worst mid-winter near surface facet layer that I can recall in my career, based on what I’ve seen the last few days. The slabs aren’t extraordinary, but the weak layer is. I think Evan’s ob from Tuesday of a quarter mile wide avalanche under a 12” soft slab really captures the challenging nature of this layer.

Date of Observation: 02/23/2022
Name: Chris Martin

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Route Description: Classic Red Lady Glades Skin track from parking lot to exposed ridge before summit. We descended Skiers left of Little Lady bowl avoiding avalanche terrain.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Ascending the red lady skintrack, at about 11,250’, we remotely triggered a D2.5 soft slab avalanche on a windloaded E-SE facing slope NTL and below a ridgetop. The crown was 50-100cm thick, and propagated an estimated 200 ft. The slab was 4F hardness near the bottom tapering to F hard near the surface. We also noticed a dust later near the bottom of the storm snow. The bed surface was small grained (1-1.5mm facets) on top of a soft, collapsible crust. There were also small grained facets below the crust too.
Weather: Scattered clouds throughout the morning with intermittent periods of sunlight. Around noon, cloud cover increased to overcast as SW wind speeds also increased. Precipitation intensity hovered around S-1 to S1 during our tour (ended at 1:30).
Snowpack: At lower elevations, there was 6-10” of low density new snow. As we ascended in elevation, we found 8-17” of slab on top of various dry weak layers. Ascending on south, the slab capped a stout MfCr. As the aspect became more southeast and east, crusts become weaker and softer, unable to support the load from this storm on lee slopes. On low angle south terrain, we got a handful of collapses in gladed areas that simply don’t receive enough direct sunlight to produce a stout crust.

Date of Observation: 02/23/2022
Name: Kevin Krill

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Observed from Mike’s mile nordic trail.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Widespread activity from the gronk all the way to gunsite bridge. R/D1 and D2 East of East of alien shack. R/D2 and D3 in the climax chutes. Debis covered nordic track 5 to 6′ deep for 200 yd. Is runout was just sigh of slate river
Weather: Brief clearing. Otherwise heavy snow.
Snowpack: A foot to 18″ fresh.